Railroad-rail



UNITED STATES lPATENT oEEIcE;

EDWD. W. STEPHENS AND RICHD. JENKINS, OF COVINGTON, KENTUCKY.

' RAILROAD-RAIL.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 20,007, dated AprI 20, 1858.

To all 'whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, EDW. WV. STEPHENS and RICHARD JENKINS, of the cityof Covington, county of Kenton, and State of Kentucky, have invented anew and useful Improvement in Railroad-Rails; and we do hereby declarethat the following is a full, clear, and eXact description thereof,reference being had to the accompanying drawings and to the letters andfigures of reference marked thereon and made to form part of thisspecification.

The nature of our improvement consists in giving the rail a structurecombined with a certain form with which we can make a stronger rail,with the same quantity of metal than has been heretofore accomplished.

August 18th 1857 we had granted to us a patent for an improved tubular Trailroad rail and it was allowed us on t-he welding of t-he neck orwalls of the rail together, thus forming an entire and complete T railweb. And from experience we have found that the rail is entirelyr asstrong and serviceable when it is made in the form and mannerrepresented in the drawings of our patent August 18th 1857, with it-swalls only forced, or pressed, together, in place of being welded, forthe form given to the sides or walls of the rail, will cause them topress together when the weight is placed on the top-of the rail, or onone side of the top of it, for instance when a train is passing over acurved portion of the road, and the rail will support as much weight asif its walls were welded together, and as far as our experience has gonethe rail is as good in all respects with its walls only forced orpressed together as it is when they are welded together.

To enable others Skilled in the .art to make and use our improvement, wewill proceed to describe its construction by referring direct to theaccompanying drawings of which- Figurel, is a transverse sectional viewof the improved rail, and Fig. ,2, is a side view of a piece of it.

The iron is worked, composing the rail and it is made into a forrn witha suitable pair of rollers, which form matter for a separate patent.

To facilitate, in describing the parts of .the rail we will refer tothem with letters of reference.

(A,) represents the top of the rail (B,

B,) its walls welded pressed or forced together from C, C, with a'pairof rollers, and the outside of the walls ofthe rail from near the top toa short distance below where they are made to commence to meet are madeconcaving, as represented at (al, cZ,)'

for the purpose of making them brace inward when the rail is loaded asis denoted by the direction of the darts marked on each wall B, whichcause the walls of the rail to press together and makes the rail asstrong as if they were welded together.

By constructing the rail as described with its walls made concaving asrepresented, and forced or welded together about linches more or lessfrom the base of the rail with the outside and concaved portion of thewalls of the rail extending a short distance below where the walls areforced togetherit will make a stronger and more durable rail with thesame quantity of metal than has heretofore been made. Y

Should the walls (B, 13,) be made straight and separated from each otheras represented by the dotted red ink lines in Fig. 1, and not meettogether 'only at a point at the base of the rail they 'would morereadily give way where they and the flanges or base of the rail arejoined together, and particularly when the straight wall rail is used ont-he curved portion of roads as the weight of the cars then pressesheavier on the side of the outside rail, and owing to the increase ofleverage and lateral force produced on the rail in the curved portionsof the road it would bend the straight walled rail over to one side,which would not take place with our improved rail with theV same forcewhen the walls are welded or forced together and madel concavin asrepresented-for one of the walls woul have to compress and the otherstretch before bending the rail do-wn to one side and will thereforerequire more 4 force to bend our improved rail down to one side than ittakes to bend the straight walled rail with the same quantity of metalin the rail.

We will here state, that in makin the rails the walls B, B, of some ofthem will be welded together from (C, 0,) while others will only bepartially welded and some only pressed together as the rail often getstoo cold in the process of making it for welding before it is passedbetween the rollers the last time at which time the walls of the railare welded if welded at all.

Walls made concaving, on their outside at (d, LL) from near the top ofthe rail, down a short distance below Where they are made to meet, Jforthe purpose of making the Walls brace inward with which combinedstructure and form of rail We can make astronger one With the samequantity of metal, as before mentioned and described in the foregoingspecication.

E. W. STEPHENS. RICHARD JENKINS.

Witnesses:

CHARLES H. Fox, M. BENSON.

